The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-04-06

Here, too, she was quite crlfical. as with their
singing. With Tom she had the most trou-
bie She mimicked him numerically
Your voice sounds like the rafting OF
beans in pod. Here you gol Listeni'
All this came indelibly back to Shirley,
when she became teacher on her own ac-
count She smiled to herself sadly as she
found herself repeating the very expressions
she had beard from her mothers kps. Shirley
Carstone never gave up anything she UNDER
took In time her pupils learned. Their
young voices took on clear cut, refined tones,
which distinguished them from the ordinary
country side children as though they had been
Of different race. Strangers after while
came from far and near to hear the singing
and reading in Shirley's school II was ma
ture's own melody.
Another point OF especial concern with Col.
Carstone had been that his children should
learn 20 speak correctly. Himself and wife.
both highly cultivated persons, had had their
lot in life cast in the crude, unlettered COM
munity of Linwood. Il happened so. and
they could not change it. But be determined
at least that his ehildrens voices should not
glide into the fiat, odious dialect OF the aver
age uncultured American. To this end 50
many hours were devoted each week to Ian
charge of these Mistakes in his childrens
speech were carefully noted and corrected.
The regular language lesson brought much
merriment among the young ones and their
papa
The father adhered rigidly 20 his plan as
long as be lived The daughter unconsciously
adopted it in her school and clung to il
There was yet one more matter on which
this accomplished gentleman laid great stress.
That was home politeness. He declared that
home was exactly the place 10 practice the
highest politeness one knew.
Its the place where politeness is most
needed, he told his family. If YOU wish 20
be at ease and graceful. you must learn to be
at ease and graceful at home Practice the
best manner you know constantly, 50 as TO
make it your own manner. Then YOU viii
never know anything else. -
He was as good as his word, too He was
as chivalrous and deferential to his wife down
to the last of bis life as if she had been one of
her own pretty lady friends.
So Notable was this in the r,Isti, neichbor-
hood in which they lived that Jim Sweet was
moved to remark TO Mis- Simpkins:
BE goll dinged if I ever see man like
CaTstone! He's rnannerdly to his own wife.
He's as perlite to her as if he wuzn't married
TO herr
He is, is heF retorted the peppery grocer
wife. We'll, ali I've got 70 say is that he's
a show in these parts. He ought 10 be locked
up in glass case and toted around the
country with the circus, ten cents a sight!n
Shiriey's father had been gracious and
eourtly TO all the world He was a man who
was polite to his own children. lie saw ahead
of his generation. The new and better educa-
tional theories which are only now slowly
making their way among thoughtful men
and women he perceived long before. and put
into practice. His children's harmonious de
velopment was SO blended with their plays
that they scarcely knew which was instruc-
tion aud which was play
These wise, sweet methods were infallibly
reflected afterward in the work of his daugh-
ter, as face ansvereth 20 face in glass
Her pupils learned to u e their eyes and
their thoughts to see the beauty that lay all
about them They were taught that each
was block of living clay hiding in its heart
a statue of perfect nobleness and beauty. To
chisel away the obstructing ignorance, selfish
ness, awkwardness and unworthiness, leaving
only the statue in it splendid grace-this was
their education.
The girl succeeded with them TO a degree
that would not have seemed possible But
Rome was not built in a day. Her task was
the work of tiring years Yet il was its ex-
ceeding great reward. The t4inwood school
children came TO look ON life from loftier
plane than their ancestors had done. A stran-
ger coming among them after they became
men and women would have catalogued
among their virtues and graces broad INTEL
ligence, a delicate sense~of honor, an ease and
polish of manner socially, a kindliness that in
some wise neared them to the ideal commu-
nifty
Thus bravely Shirley wrought She was
forced to the deferment of her own brightest.
sweetest hopes. She toiled year by year at a
labor that was hateful to her Yet, working
through the children committed to her care.
it was her happy privilege TO quicken Lin
wood into a higher, finer life. Was not that
somethingi 1t was much.
Outside of the blessed home-life in the stone
house, Shirley had known little of the world
socially. When she became the village school
mistress, the faithful Mis- Simpkins had adj
vised her that she must make herself acquain-
ted with the families of her pupils. That was
to gain the general good win. The good dame
gave the young teacher much advice. Mis-
Simpkins was always ready to give away any
thing tllat cost nothing.
Shirley attended some of the neighborhood
festivities. They grated ON her painfully.
She shrank apart from the company. The
women's clack, the harsh guffaw of the men,
the idiotic sniekering of the older girls, only
repelled her.
In the conversation of the Lnwood
women, the most petty incident the most
contemplate fault or mistake of those who
were absent were taken up and discussed
with an intensity and made as much of it as
if the fate of a kingdom had hung ON them.
Shirley sat in silence. She listened and
meditated. The thought of her poem was
seldom long absent from her mind 1t ran
like an undermotive through her every day
deeds-the only bright theme in her life then.
Above all, the dream of a kingly woman
haunted her Imagination still She had said
the people in her grand epic that was to be
should be women. She could create the
klngly woman from the vision in her imagi-
nation, but she had thought the minor char.
acters We're to come from life Were all the
women in the world like these in Linwoodi
Then whence were the women in her poem to
come?
Another thought chased this one Her girl
pupis-would they be like that, too, when
they came to be womenl
They shall not" said Shirley
She went no more TO the Linwood Sewing
society. But from that day she was drawn
nearer to her girls, to work NOR, earnestly
with them. She answered now u them the
question she had asked her father in child
hood, and the answer was this:
"a girl has as much sense as boy if she
will make use Of itfn
She impressed on them intensely that their
intellectual powers were given them for use,
and they would be guilty of nothing less
than sin if they neglected them
You learn your lessons as well as the
boys do" she told the larger girls. why
should you get stupid laterl Don't let me
hear of itt1
With a sweet insistence she protested from
day to day that they should not allow their
mental horizon to narrow till it inclosed only
ribbons and gossip. They must not follow
the millions of their kind, who live and
make no more impression on their world than
gnats upon an elephant. When they died is
was recorded on their tonbstOnes that they
were the wife Of Smith. That was all.
Shirley read and studied with her girls.
She interested them permanently in science,
in literature and in the large affairs of life.
Cannot q genius do all thingsf Yet with all
this work this intense concentration Of ener-
gies elsewhere, the poem had again to be
put of
So more wears moved ON.
And sti no news of the master.
ITO BE Continued